


Charcoal and Dust

by romanticalgirl



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:45:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9942656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: Plan M was never supposed to happen.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Further notes on character death at the end.
> 
> Special thanks to [maurheti](http://archiveofourown.org/users/maurheti/pseuds/maurheti) for the beta. Any and all mistakes are mine.

She punches him in the face, curses then jabs two knuckles into his throat. He falls back, gagging, and she keeps coming. She’s furious, her blonde hair caught in the wind and flying around her face. He deflects her next attack, but she’s learned plenty from him and since him. She uses her speed and smaller size against him. She knees him in the solar plexus then spins, ducking under his reach to kick him in the kidneys. 

He curses under his breath and grabs her leg before she can pull it away, jerking on it so she goes down on her back. She hits the ground hard and loses her breath in one quick gasp. He goes down on one knee and settles his shin over one thigh, the other leg still in his hand. Her face is as red as her eyes and tears glisten, none of them falling, though her lashes are dark.

He brings her leg down and pins her other thigh, grabbing her hands as she brings up her fingers, nails ready to strike. He pins them to the ground s well and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Everything fell apart, and now they’re here. Both of them hurt and angry and blaming each other. Blaming themselves. 

“Hello, Parker.”

She shakes her head once, and still her tears don’t fall. Her eyes narrow in anger, defiance and she bucks, trying to dislodge him from on top of her. He’s got the advantage of weight and training and gravity, so he knows she’s not going anywhere. 

“I’m guessing reasoning with you and attempting a conversation here isn’t going to work, huh?” 

She manages to jerk her hand free which, given her ability to get out of any set of handcuffs, doesn’t really surprise him. She slaps him hard enough that his head whips to the side. He catches her hand again, locking his fingers tight around her wrist. She’ll have bruises.

“I didn’t ask you here, remember?”

That seems to settle her down, and something’s intrinsically wrong with the way she deflates. He hasn’t seen her do that in a long time. An even longer time than the years that are stretched between them. 

“Now, if I let you up, are you gonna be civil?”

She’s breathing loudly through her nose, her lips in a tight line. Finally she nods once and Eliot blows out another breath. He rocks back onto his feet and straightens, pulling her up from the floor with him. He waits until she nods again before releasing her wrists. Watching her for a second, he nods in return. He turns and heads for the kitchen, assuming she’ll follow.

It’s spotless because he’s been gone for the past two weeks, but he had the service deliver fresh food this afternoon, so he goes to the fridge and pulls out mushrooms, spinach, peppers, thick slices of ham, cheese, and a carton of eggs. He keeps his back to her, and he wonders if she knows what that means. How much it means. 

“I don’t have any cereal, but if you’re hungry, I can make you an omelet too.” He sets the vegetables in the sink and pushes up his sleeves before turning on the cold water. He rinses them, listening for the sounds of her. Or rather the way she moves without sound, like she’s negative space. He grabs a cutting board and his knife and starts on the mushrooms slicing them into thin, nearly transparent slices. “I’ll even leave out the green stuff if that’ll make it more palatable for you.”

He can see her out of the corner of his eye as she settles on one of the kitchen bar stools. He doesn’t know how she found him, but he’s not surprised that she did. Rumors were she was working with a new hacker. Probably nowhere near as good as Hardison, but no one was. Is. Was. 

“Do you have beer?”

He stops working with the vegetables and goes to the fridge, pulling a beer out for each of them. He twists the caps off and sets hers in front of her. She glares at it, refusing to look at him. He takes a drink of his and goes back to work. Parker’s silences were always light. More like she wasn’t there at all. This silence isn’t like that. This one weighs down like a heavy fog. He hears her lift her bottle, hears her drink before she settles it back on the counter. 

He turns and sets the dozen eggs on the counter facing her. He grabs a bowl from beneath it and puts it next to the carton. “Are you eating?”

She nods, jerkily. He’s surprised he’s gotten a sentence out of her, so he’s not going to complain about the nods. They’re actually even more than he expected. He cracks open several eggs, pours a small amount of water into them, then whips them with the whisk. He preheats the pan and goes back to the vegetables and the ham, dicing it all up into pieces and then putting them into the pan with a dollop of butter 

He takes another drink of his beer as he stirs everything with a spatula, waiting until it’s sauteed perfectly before spooning in the whipped eggs. Her eyes stay on him, tracking his every move. He shapes the omelet then adds the cheese, wrapping it around itself and then sliding it onto a plate for her. Setting it in front of her, he lets himself watch her. 

She hasn’t changed much. She looks the same except for the lines bracketing her mouth, hiding in the corners of her eyes. He sets a fork next to the plate, then moves back to the stove to work on his own omelet. It’s almost finished when he first hears her fork touch the plate. He serves himself and goes to stand opposite her, looking up to watch her occasionally as she takes a bite.

She eats fast, and he wonders when she last ate. He imagines the last _real_ food she ate was three years ago. He can remember it vividly. Ham and cheddar fettuccine, garlic butter-soaked rolls, Caesar salad, and tiramisu. It was the second anniversary of Leverage 2.0, just the three of them together. They were celebrating. 

And then the call they’d been waiting for came in and Eliot grifted in a way that would make even Sophie proud. The mark was hooked, and everything else was supposed to fall into place. Supposed to. They ran through every plan they could think of, zigzagging through the alphabet to keep all the balls in the air. Two of them should have worked right off the bat. Seven of them needed a little bit of tweaking. One of them was foolproof.

None of them worked.

Which left them with Plan M.

**

There wasn’t a funeral. There wasn’t enough left to bury. There was no one to come. Parker disappeared. Eliot packed up all of Hardison’s laptops and devices and sent them to Hardison’s Nana to use for her foster kids. He wasn’t the one who could be eloquent, so he sent Nate a text and asked him to take care of that end of things. 

He walked out of the brew pub and kept walking.

“I found him.” Her voice startles him, bringing him back to the present. He looks up at her. Her face could be set in stone. 

“How?”

“That’s not important and, more importantly, it’s none of your business.” She doesn’t look away from him, her eyes like lasers locked on his. “I have a plan to take him down.”

He hears an echo of his own voice making a promise to Sophie. He knows his answer. She knows his answer.

“I need a hitter.”

“You’ve got one.”

She nods, still not looking away. “I don’t intend for him to live.” He knows what’s coming. And he knows his answer to that as well. But she has to ask. “I need a killer.”

Eliot swallows and doesn’t hesitate. “You’ve got one.”

**

He makes a few arrangements while he cleans up the kitchen. He’d planned on staying at this safe house for at least a week, and now the food’s going to spoil. He’ll have to call the service to clean it out. Parker’s looking around at what he knows is an absence of him in the place as he calls the people taking care of where he really lives to let them know he’s going to be later than planned. 

“Are you ready to go?”

Eliot hangs up the towel and looks at her. Her face is set in annoyance, and it’s not a good look for her. “Right behind you.”

**

She brings him to a warehouse that he knows right away isn’t her headquarters. He’s not sure if she even has one any more or if shes simply moves from place to place. He hasn’t paid attention, he hasn’t looked. He tries to ignore the few things that slip through the cracks, even though they seem to embed themselves in his brain. He careful to do his business in foreign countries where they aren’t likely to cross paths. He works alone.

There’s a kid who looks like he’s maybe fifteen years old sitting behind an array of five computers. Other than that, there’s just a clear whiteboard, a cork board, a table, three mismatched chairs, and fourteen pizza boxes. Eliot blames those on the kid. 

“Jeremiah. This is Eliot. Pretend he doesn’t exist.” 

Jeremiah’s got a set of headphones on, and Eliot’s not sure he even knows they’re here, much less that he heard them. She walks over to the boards and Eliot follows at a distance. He doesn’t trust her not to attack him again, and he has no desire for a repeat performance. She steps to the side and he walks along the boards reading the information she has, following the patterns, figuring out the way she’s arranged her clues, her research. 

The left side of the board has a picture of the building. What was left of the building. Black, twisted metal and burgundy bricks gray with dust. He could pinpoint the place where it all started, where it all came down. He was there. 

**

It was a bomb. Large and loud and triggered by the heat in the server room. Thirty seconds wouldn’t have gotten Hardison halfway through the building. Either way he would have been dead. Except, of course, if he’d followed instructions and not been in the goddamned building, not to mention the room.

Eliot was on the opposite end of the construction site from Hardison. He’d been fighting five guys, and he was finally down to one. He heard a bone snap as the guy went down. 

He yelled that he was on his way and flew off to the other end of the building. Hardison wasn’t there when Eliot got to the meeting point. Eliot heard a rough curse rumble through the ear buds and then Hardison was shouting at them to get away, to get everyone away.

Eliot ran forward, but the building blew him backward. Air and smoke and dust billowed everywhere and he couldn’t feel his left arm. He shoved off anyone who tried to stop him, running through the building schematics in his head so he could _find him_. He knew Parker was talking to him, but he couldn’t hear her, couldn’t hear anything. Even if the explosion hadn’t made hearing impossible, he knew the beat of his heart would have drowned everything out. 

He found the room. He found where the room should be. He dug and lifted and dragged and dug some more. He kicked away anything still on fire. He scraped his hands and fingers raw, strength he didn’t know he possessed fueling every movement as he shoved off responders, as he pushed away concrete and brick and insulation. 

Someone finally dragged him off and forced him to an ambulance. Adrenaline was throbbing in his veins, fear and disbelief and unadulterated horror clogging his blood. His vision was tinted red and somewhere inside him something was screaming. If it were still beating, he might think it was his heart.

The paramedics left him alone for a few minutes, and he headed back to the building, this time with his hands wrapped in bandages that would give him some protection for a short time. More time to dig. He had too far to go before he could find Hardison. He ended up at the ambulance again. He’d lost three fingernails and he could see in the reflection of one of the car windows that his face was white where it wasn’t gray, where tracks of tears had cracked through the dust.

The third time, they’d handcuffed him to the ambulance. He dislocated his thumb and left a chunk of skin when he got away again, and then they simply put him in the ambulance and drove him away, pumping him full of something to sedate him.

He’d checked himself out the next day and gone back. Parker was standing beside the site. She looked small and fragile and frozen as she stared. He walked past her without touching her and went back to where he knew Hardison was. Crews were working. He grabbed someone’s hard hat and vest and put them on, pulling gloves on over the bandages as well as he could.

There were cranes and diggers and backhoes now, scores of people directing and working their way through the layers, looking for survivors. Eliot could have told them there weren’t any. There were only bodies.

**

He squeezes his eyes closed and then rubs his them before moving away from the picture. If he wasn’t wearing his jacket, he could see the thick raised scars where broken glass and rubble had embedded in his skin. The few too-smooth areas where the flames had caught him. The area where the cuffs had taken his skin is paler, no hair on it. 

Maximilian Travers. A billionaire business developer known for using sub-par building materials, unskilled laborers, backdoor deals, government fraud, and bribery. Now he is buried in the WITSEC program because someone convinced somebody that he knew something other than how to save his own ass. 

He’d disappeared the day after the explosion. Parker’s grift had been good. He’d been hooked. But someone or something got in the middle of it. It had ended after hanging in suspended animation when Eliot came back to headquarters after a week. He was bloodier than he should be, more exhausted than he’d ever been. He walked in and looked at Parker, then moved to the conference table. He’d reached out and set a chain on the desk in front of her. It had been Hardison’s. 

She looked up at him. Eliot took out his ear bud and set it next to the chain. She’d caught him before he reached the door and punched him until she’d broken down in sobs. He’d picked her up and carried her to the sofa, wrapping her up in a blanket. He wouldn’t take her upstairs to the room she shared with Hardison. 

There’s another picture next to Travers’s. It’s from a telephoto lens, black and white and grainy. “Who’s that?”

“Reggie Hicks.” Her voice is cold. There’s no more of the impishness that used to surround her. “Travers’s business partner. After Travers disappeared, Hicks moved to Seattle. The building business is booming. His business is picking up. He undercuts all the other contractors because he can make the loss up elsewhere. He’s using the same playbook as Travers.”

“Parks.” Jeremiah jerks his head and Parker moves to look at his screen. Eliot goes around to do the same. There’s a sudden visceral reaction to the setting, to the kid next to him. Eliot doesn’t know what he’s looking at, but Parker’s nodding. 

“Hicks wanted Travers out of the picture so he could have sole interest in the company. Travers fought him for it. Travers, if it weren’t for me, would have been in the building that day. Travers is being transferred to a new location tomorrow. I want him taken out. Incapacitated.” She looks at him, her face immobile. “When he’s down, when he’s _out_ , we go after Hicks.”

“Hicks is in Seattle?”

“Yeah. He’s got four buildings in process. He’s also had two smaller places built for low-income families that have suffered from power failures, water failures, electrical failures, and that aren’t strong enough to support someone leaning against them.”

“Okay. What’s the call?”

“You need a gun.”

**

Eliot stands at the shooting range and stares at the target. Using a gun was still second nature. Muscle memory burned down into his bones. He doesn’t miss. His hands don’t shake. Taking a deep breath, he holds the gun up and pulls the trigger. The SDI Tactical DS feels different than his usual Sig Sauer, but he likes the weight and feel of it. Likes the 17 rounds. 

Eight in the head, eight in the heart. And one in the dick just because. 

“When was the last time?”

Eliot stiffens. “None of your damn business, Parker.”

“If I’m paying you for this, it’s my business.”

He turns, and he doesn’t know what expression is on his face, but she straightens slightly. “You’re not paying me.”

“This is a job.”

“You know as well as I do that this is personal. You pay the people who work for you. Not the people who work beside you. And if that’s not what you’re looking for here, you’ve given me more than enough for me to finish this on my own.” He drops the spent magazine into his hand. 

“I have a right to know who I’m working with.”

“Then do your damn research.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Eliot takes a deep breath and looks at her. “Suriname. A year and a half ago. It wasn’t on purpose. Neck snapped.”

“You don’t kill by accident.”

“Actually, pretty sure that’s all I’ve been doing for a long time now.” He wonders what’s going through her head. The only time she was easy to read was when she was about to do something that was more mischief than trouble, and he doesn’t know if those times exist any more. “Maybe you should take a better look at who you’re hiring if you don’t know that, darlin’.”

She stiffens at the word and her eyes whip back to his. “How many was it in the warehouse? A dozen?”

Eliot shifts back, his body as rigid as steel. He doesn’t look away from her. “Plus Chapman. Baker’s dozen.” He doesn’t want to ask, but it suddenly matters more than anything, even revenge, to know how long she’s known.

“We’re not stupid, Eliot. None of us. And, no. Nate didn’t say a word.” It doesn’t answer his question, but he refuses to press. It’s Parker though, who could always read him. “We drove by the warehouse on our way to the hanger. It was still burning. There were SUVs everywhere before the responders even came. Damien Moreau wasn’t about to let us walk in and take him. No one thought that.”

“You thought I’d incapacitate them.”

“We thought that Damien Moreau played for keeps. And so do you. Your job was to keep us.” She shrugs. “That third shot was a little high to the right.”

“Shattering the frontal squama. Can’t always aim for the optic canal.” He shrugs. “God, I fucking hate guns.”

She nods, wrinkling her nose as if she’s just noticing the smell. “Me too.”

**

Travers, from the plans, looks easy. Parker’s FBI jacket is hanging on the back of one of the chairs when he comes back to the warehouse, and, he realizes with a twist of his gut, Hardison’s is on the back of one of the others. No. His own. Not Hardison’s. It’s simply that Hardison and Parker were always the agents, Hagen and Thomas. Eliot’s job wasn’t information, it was turning that information into action. 

“They’re moving him tomorrow at two. Right before traffic gets bad. Bulletproof car. Four-car escort, typical setup.” Jeremiah doesn’t sound like Hardison at all. He sounds more like he’s a stereotypical punk who should be on a skateboard, showing off at some concrete park. But Eliot can still hear echoes. He’s not sure he’ll ever stop. “You take down Sheridan and Winters, they’re the lead on the outside cars. Can’t hit Cole and Franklin, it’s gonna look too suspicious.”

“No one’s going to look twice at two new agents?” Parker has a bag she’s packing with her gear. Eliot sees the leather strap of a harness and a coil of rope disappear inside. She disappears behind a screen. 

“WITSEC is a pretty tight group, but there’s been some grumbling lately. Group dynamics are a little tense.” Eliot manages to suppress his bark of laughter, the irony not lost on him. “They’ve got a few sets of teams, and it wouldn’t be too strange if they shuffled a couple around. Made your badges. They’re on the table.”

Eliot picks them up. They look legit, which is just further proof the kid is good. His is Special Agent Ford and Parker’s is Special Agent Hardison. Eliot sucks in a breath and glances over to where Parker’s hidden behind the divider. “This isn’t funny, Parker.”

She comes out, dressed in black slacks, a white shirt, and black tie. Her eyes are dark, hard and sharp. “It’s not supposed to be funny. Your clothes are back there.” She takes her badge from him. “Go get dressed.”

Eliot glares at her until she’s out of his sight, but he knows she doesn’t see it, doesn’t see him. He steps out of his boots then takes off the rest of his clothes. They all knew each other’s sizes just in case one of them was sent on a clothing run, and neither he nor Parker have changed much. They’re both leaner, hungrier maybe. He pauses before he puts his shirt on. “We’ve got a problem.”

She comes around the divider and looks him over. The slacks are unfastened and his chest is bare. She barely looks at his arms. “What?”

“Hair.” She looks at his head, but he knows she’s not seeing him. His hair is still the shorter length it had been when Nate and Sophie left, but it’s nowhere near FBI regulation. She walks away and Eliot exhales. “You’re not taking the kid in with you.”

“No kidding.” She comes back and puts a chair on the ground in front of her. “Sit.”

Eliot looks at the pair of scissors in her hand. They catch the light like something out of a horror movie and he raises his eyes to hers. He’d chopped his own hair to this length, and letting someone else near him with a pair of scissors makes every muscle in his body tense. Putting his back to someone who hates him, doesn’t trust him, blames him for her boyfriend’s death, _and_ has a pair of scissors isn’t something he would ever do.

He sits down and clears his throat. “Do your worst.”

Parker leans in and her voice is a hiss in his ear. “Don’t tempt me.” She pulls back and he closes his eyes, focusing on the sound of the scissors, the sharp snips. He trusts her because she needs him to pull this off. Revenge on them is more important than revenge on him. They both know her anger and hatred directed at him is irrational. It doesn’t stop either of them from feeling it. He failed. They both know it.

Her fingers are light when they brush the hair off the back of his neck. Eliot bows his head forward and he hears Parker’s sharp intake of breath. “Done?”

“Yeah.” She backs away and Eliot stands up, rubbing his fingers through his hair to try to get out all the loose strands. He shakes his head and looks at her. She comes forward combs her fingers through it, most likely putting it in some semblance of a style. She brushes a few fallen hairs off his shoulders, and something sharp goes through Eliot, through them both, like a stabbing pain that shows in her eyes. He knows it’s reflected in his.

**

She’d show up in his house, crawling through his bedroom window. He hadn’t been sleeping. He’d been staring at the ceiling, contemplating going back out to the site. He’d found Hardison. He’d found what little was left. The small area he’d been trapped in was still full of flames when they’d found it. Eliot has a burn mark on the palm of his hand, on his fingers where he’d grabbed and held Hardison’s necklace. He had yet to feel anything other than the raw ache inside him.

He’d wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, both of them needing it like air. Blame still hung around them, but it had been seven years of building a family, and that didn’t disappear in the thirty seconds it took the bomb to go off. He crushed her against his chest, his arms like iron bands around her. He choked on a sob, and her mouth was wet with tears when she pressed it against his.

It was like the last seconds ticked off of the bomb and they exploded. Hard and desperate and painful. She scratched his skin, he bruised hers. It was bodies clashing, both of them needing to dominate and needing to be dominated. It felt almost like a fight, but one in which they were evenly matched.

It lasted for hours, neither of them ever able to go over the edge. She rode him, her nails scratching dark lines down his chest to his waist; he flipped them and fucked into her with every ounce of hurt and pain inside him. She clung, wrapped around him and kissing him like air was too much for her unless it was his. 

They’d finally stopped, too exhausted to move. He felt like he’d been beaten by twenty men at once, his body broken and torn to pieces. Neither of them came. They simply stopped together as if they knew there was no relief from what they were feeling. He’d rolled off of her, out of her, and stared at the ceiling again. She didn’t move beside him, her chest almost still. 

“You didn’t do your job.”

“No.” He’d done everything he could and, just like he’d always known, it wasn’t enough. He could see her nod out of the corner of his eye, and she got up from the bed. She was still as graceful as always, but he could see he could see that the movement cost her. It was like swimming through quicksand, every step sucking harder at her limbs. 

She’d dressed and gone out the window. And out of his life.

**

“Finish getting dressed. We’ve got work to do.” She turns on her heel, but Eliot doesn’t watch. He pulls on his shirt and buttons it, tucking it into his pants, fastening them. He ties his tie before coming out from behind the screen. Jeremiah looks up at both of them while Eliot clips on his badge.

“Damn. If I didn’t know better, I’d be getting the fuck out of town.”

“Do we have a car?” Eliot asks. Parker nods brusquely. 

“If you’re hungry, I ordered pizza. You have time before you head out.”

Eliot ignores Jeremiah. “Let’s go. We can’t just show up out of the blue.”

Parker tosses him the keys. He follows her out to the car, parked far enough from the warehouse that no one would even think to connect the two. He follows her directions, letting her voice be the only sound in the car until Jeremiah starts talking.

“They’re switching shifts in about twenty minutes. You can catch Sheridan and Winters as they come off shift. It’d be a normal time to get a call regarding a change in teams, since they’ve got eighteen hours before they’d roll up again if it weren’t for the move. I’ll put in a call and let Cole know what’s going on. They aren’t going to be happy, but they won’t complain. There’s some behind the scenes talk about Winters being some sort of mole, and they probably don’t want her to be in on the move anyway. You may have to intercept some actual new agents. I’ll keep an ear out and let you know.”

“Kill the phone,” Parker says, turning it off. She reaches out and holds her hand in front of Eliot. He takes his eyes off the road for a second and glances down.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Dammit, Parker.” They both freeze, and the air in the car changes. He takes the ear bud from her hand and shoves it in his ear. He hates how _right_ it feels. “I got rid of all his gear.”

“You didn’t get rid of mine.” She adjusts hers and puts it in her ear. “Go, Jeremiah.”

“Room 571 has the other two sets of agents in it. Sheridan’s in 576. Winters is in the adjoining room. They don’t particularly like each other. I monitored a call from their section chief, and they are sending in a new team. Sinclair and Alexander. They should hit the hotel about the same time as you.”

“Call them right before they get to the hotel. Tell them there’s some suspicious activity. Get them to go in through the kitchen.” Eliot tightens his hands on the steering wheel and sighs. “I don’t like fighting law enforcement.”

“Don’t fight them. Just knock ‘em out.”

“That’s _fighting_ , Parker.”

“Fighting is when they can respond to what you do. Knocking them out is just knocking them out.”

“There is something wrong with you,” he mutters under his breath as he pulls into the parking lot. He leads Parker around the building to the kitchen and quickly clears all of the workers into the refrigerator, assuring them it won’t take long. The other agents walk in and Parker smacks one of them on the back of the head with a pan. 

“See?”

“Jesus.” Eliot gets the other agent in a choke hold and keeps him there until he goes limp from lack of air. Parker’s got the one agent locked in his own cuffs, and Eliot does the same to his. They liberate their radios and then drag them into the fridge after letting the kitchen staff out. “Impersonating FBI agents. Federal crime.” Eliot nods to them. “Don’t let ‘em talk you into anything. The authorities are on their way.”

They take the elevator to the fifth floor, neither of them talking. Eliot strips off his FBI jacket and slips on the shoulder holster he’d taken off one of the agents before cuffing him. He adjusts it and checks the gun. The Glock isn’t his favorite, but it’ll do. He puts the jacket back on to cover it and glances over at Parker. Her eyes are at his left shoulder where the gun causes the jacket to bulge an infinitesimal amount. 

Parker knocks on Winters’s door, nodding to Eliot. He nods back then moves over, kicking it in. He stops in the doorway and Parker shoves him aside and then stops as well. The two agents are naked on the bed together, one of them fumbling for his gun. 

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding.” Parker doesn’t say anything, just hits the button on the taser. The one reaching for his gun falls off the bed with a jerk and Eliot groans. “You couldn’t tase the girl?”

“Tasing a girl is better than hitting her?”

The agent comes off the bed and directly at Parker, no doubt sensing her as the lesser threat. She runs into Eliot instead, and he spins her around, catching her in a choke hold. It’s the easiest and safest way to take them down, and he’s probably going to do a few more before the day is through. She claws at his arm, and he’s glad he’s got his jacket on. 

“What exactly do we do with two naked agents?” Eliot asks as the woman goes limp

“What the hell y’all doing in there?” Jeremiah asks. “Oh, no. Your agents were doing the nasty? That is just not right. They’re supposed to be protecting our country.”

“Their job right now is to protect scum.” Parker’s voice is sharp as she grabs the woman and drags her to the bed. Eliot grabs her feet and helps Parker put her down on the mattress. She zip ties the woman’s hands to the bed and Eliot goes around to the man. 

“I had no plans to manhandle some naked guy. Just so you know.” Eliot gets him up over his shoulder and gets him onto the bed next to the woman. Parker tosses him a zip tie and he gets him fixed to the headboard. Parker grabs the woman’s gun and looks at it for a long time. He glances at her as he takes the other gun apart. “Unless you’re prepared to use it, don’t bother.”

She looks at him then ejects the magazine, tossing it at him. She hefts the body of the gun in her hand and then tosses it on the bed between the two agents. “Let’s go. We have things to do.”

**

It goes as smoothly as if they hadn’t stopped working together. Parker slides them into the group seamlessly, one of the boys just as easily as if she actually were. They watch the plan for the cars, for transporting Travers. She glances at Eliot across the table and nods toward the routes. It’s easy to tell the best place for the hit and he nods in return. She steps back and looks around the room. 

Eliot follows her eyes then moves away from the group as well. He stands next to her, observing how the agents hold themselves, focusing on Cole and Franklin. Everyone else is window dressing. They’re the ones riding with Travers. 

“Foresee any problems?” Parker asks out loud, though Eliot knows she’s talking to him. He nods to Franklin, and Parker can see his waist holster. It’s not the standard-issue Glock, which means he brought his own gun, hopefully one of the officially sanctioned ones. Parker moves forward into the group while Eliot scouts the room. She moves in next to Franklin and points out something on the map. Eliot’s looking for her moves, and he still doesn’t see them. It’s equally parts impressive and frightening. Which pretty much sums up Parker.

“Okay, I’ve got some intel,” Jeremiah says in his ear. “Apparently Travers called Hicks. That’s what’s prompting the move. Guy’s stupid as fuck. Trying to bargain with the guy who tried to kill him. Promise him not to give them anything if he gets him out of this. Apparently twenty-five to life isn’t sounding so great anymore.”

“Sounds damn good to me,” Eliot mutters under his breath. “But that gives us an in. We just let him think we’re with Hicks. He’ll go nice and quiet.”

“All right,” Franklin says, clapping his hands together. “Everybody get some rest.”

“We’ll take the next shift,” Eliot says. “We’re both fresh, and you guys have been dealing with this for a while. Besides, probably should get to know the guy, huh?”

“You sure?” One of the agents on the next shift asks. “You guys just got here.”

“Not a problem,” Parker assures him. “We’ve got this.”

**

Eliot sits outside in the car and breathes. He can hear Parker talking to Jeremiah, planning his part of the con. It’s too familiar, too much. Parker slides in finally after her sweep around the perimeter. She looks over at Eliot.

“So, did you deliberately scour the country for some young, smart-ass Black kid or was that just lucky?”

She ignores him and pulls up the GPS for directions to the house Travers is in. Eliot turns on the car and starts driving. After several miles, she sighs. “He came to me. He was one of Har... his orcs.”

“Elves,” Jeremiah says softly. “Archer. Covered his ass plenty of times. Stupid idiot just went in swinging like the Hulk or something.”

“Wonder where he learned that.” 

Parker’s voice is almost light, but Eliot can’t help but bristle. “Don’t recall anyone ever complaining.” That’s not true though. The last time never held a complaint in it, but something much worse. Something that slowed Eliot’s reaction time for a while, so his first few solo ventures had required more effort than they should have

They pull up to the house in silence. Eliot parks the car and rests his wrists on the wheel. “You going to be okay going in there?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because all of this is like an open wound and we’re about to pour lemon juice into it.” He rubs his forearm without thinking. “Neither of us has seen him since that day. I don’t know how it’s gonna feel. How I’m gonna feel.”

“He’s one of the reasons He... Hardison is dead.” She looks at him, and her eyes are almost black. Eliot can see pain and anger and regret in them. He might be imagining the regret. “I know how I feel.”

They knock and give the password they’d been given when they joined the team, supposedly from where they’d been in Arizona. The door opens and they walk in, both of them scouting the room. Parker shuts the front door and Eliot follows the guys into the living room, taking them both down silently. 

“Tie them up?”

“No. They’ll be out long enough.”

“Did Hicks send you?” Eliot turns around and comes face to face with Travers. He looks at Eliot expectantly. “Did he?”

Parker turns around and Travers’s face blanches. “No.”

“You... But you... I...”

“Hardison sent us.”

Eliot strikes like a snake. Travers isn’t made to take on much of anyone, much less Eliot, but Eliot still gets in a few more punches than necessary. He hears Travers’s nose break, dodging the blood that spurtes out. Parker watches, her eyes bright with enjoyment. Sadism doesn’t really suit her, but justice does.

Travers lies on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, bleeding and sobbing. Eliot walks away because all he can hear is Hardison’s high, panicked voice calling his name, telling him to stay away. When he looks over, Parker’s got her taser pressed to Travers’s neck. “Tell me the plan. Tell me Hicks’s plan.”

“He’s... He’s sending people to meet me. They’re supposed to get me away from the FBI and get me to the airport. I’m supposed to go to Seattle. Start over. He told me... He said you guys set the bomb. He said you were the ones...”

“We were trying to bring you down.” Parker takes a few steps away, not looking at Travers. Eliot can see the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she struggles to control her breathing. “He was trying to kill you! We don’t kill our goddamned marks!”

Eliot moves before he knows he’s doing it, jerking Travers to a sitting position and wrapping one hand around the back of his head, one around the front. He grabs Travers’s chin and jerks, then backs away and lets him fall. Parker turns around just as Travers hits the floor.

“Eliot.”

He shakes his head. “Shut up, Parker.”

**

Even Jeremiah is silent during the ride to the airport. Eliot wouldn’t be surprised if he’d turned off his ear bud. Parker turns on the radio, then immediately turns it off. She twists her fingers together on her lap, frowning out at the scenery. 

“You said to incapacitate him.” Eliot’s voice is low and rough. “He’s incapacitated.”

“You _killed_ him.”

“That’s incapacitated.”

“I didn’t tell you to do that.”

Eliot pulls to the side of the road and gets out of the car, walking a few feet away. Parker watches him for a minute and then gets out as well. She crosses her arms over her chest and stares. He shakes his head. 

“You don’t get to tell me anything, Parker. I don’t work for you.”

“This is a paying job. I hired you.”

“You think I want your money? Really?” He snarls the words and she recoils. He pivots and walks the opposite direction for a while before coming back. “Is that what you think of me? You think that’s who I am? Some fucking mercenary for hire? You think I’m just here for a fucking payday?” He doesn’t think he’s ever really yelled at her, not sure he’s ever yelled this loud at anyone. He’s shouted orders and warnings, but his job is to be quiet. “Is that what you _think_ , Parker?”

She flinches and her eyes narrow. She looks down at the ground and doesn’t say anything.

Eliot huffs a bitter laugh. “He was my best friend. My goddamned brother.” His voice is raw with emotion. “You think a piece of me didn’t die in there with him? You think I wouldn’t have given _anything_ to trade places with him? I swore I’d give my _life_ for the two of you, and I couldn’t even do that. He _died_. That’s on me. That’s always gonna be on me.” He rubs his eyes roughly. “But they killed him. And I’m not sorry I returned the favor.”

“Eliot.”

“You don’t make the rules on this one. I don’t do what you tell me. We’re not a goddamned team here. You’re you and I’m me, and as soon as this is done, we’re going to disappear again. And fuck you for ever thinking that... Fuck you.” 

His voice breaks and he stares up into the blinding sun. He can’t look at her. Can’t see her face. Everything inside him is burning, charcoal and dust. 

“He loved you too.” Her voice is thick, milky with tears. “He was always afraid that you’d... That you’d be the one who died and we’d have to figure out what to do without you.” 

“Well, he didn’t have to. And you would have carried on. You would have had each other, and you’d go on.”

“Why do you always think you don’t matter?”

“I knew I mattered.” He looks at her and then down at his hands. Some of the blood from Travers’s nose bleed is still there. It’s fitting. “I also knew I was expendable. Muscle’s easy to come by, easy to find. Hell, you could just call Quinn. You guys. You guys are... You were both...” He hates that he can’t finish a sentence. “He killed Hardison as much as if he’d set the bomb. I don’t care about him regretting his decisions. I don’t care about him rotting in a cell. And, to be honest, I don’t care what Hardison would think of what I just did. Now, are we going to Seattle or not?”

She’s too close to him and his nerves are standing on end. He feels flayed alive, everything open and exposed. Her hand shakes as she reaches out, and the last time she shook was when they’d faced Rand and he’d turned her inside-out. She touches his cheek and Eliot realizes he’s crying. He wasn’t sure he knew how. 

“Yeah. We’re going to Seattle.”

**

They don’t sit together on the flight. With a well-placed glare, Eliot manages to get the back row of the plane to himself. He knows he’s radiating waves of danger, and he’s almost surprised they let him on the plane at all. He can only figure it has to do with the FBI jacket he’s still wearing. Parker’s quiet the whole flight, and Eliot closes his eyes. He’s not going to sleep. There are too many people and he’s too damn vulnerable right now. He’d said more than he wanted to say, more than he ever intended. 

“Eliot.”

He starts, both of them so quiet he’d forgotten they were still wearing the ear buds. “Yeah.”

“There are four FBI agents at the end of the gateway.”

“Work your way back. We’ll go out through there while they reload supplies.” He watches her come back, crawling over the tops of the seats. People look at her, but the bright yellow FBI on her jacket keeps them moving forward with only a few backward glances. Eliot grabs her arm and guides her past the bathrooms. He flashes his badge at the flight attendants and they slip onto the loading platform, both of them shimmying down the metal girders. Eliot hits the ground and Parker jumps into his arms. He sets her down and they slip under the plane, heading into the crew area beneath the terminal. 

They find a locker room and Eliot breaks open a few lockers until he finds a captain’s uniform to put on. He’s about to pull on the shirt when she reaches out and grabs his arm. He can see her looking at the scars on his arm, can feel her fingers between the raised white lines, and he shakes her off. 

“Find something to wear.” 

“Meet me upstairs. Gate C4.” She grins and heads out, leaving her FBI jacket and tie behind. Eliot tosses everything into a trash can and ties it off, setting it on the trailer as the maintenance guy rides by. They wave at each other, and Eliot heads up, adjusting his hat slightly lower than normal, hiding his face.

Parker’s at the gate dressed as a flight attendant, pulling her suitcase behind her along with a bigger one she hands off to him. They walk slowly as if they’re landed for the night, heading out together. They keep their heads bent in toward each other. Parker laughs and smiles at Eliot, acting like he’s said something funny. He grins at her in response and they keep walking. They both see FBI agents, but keep walking, returning the nods the agents send in their direction.

“I’ve got you a hotel room just outside SeaTac.” Jeremiah’s voice almost makes Eliot jump. Having Parker in his head again is one thing, but someone he doesn’t really know, who isn’t Hardison, keeps throwing him off. “Looks like someone alerted Hicks, so he’s gone to ground. I’m doing some searching, so you guys should get something to eat and crash for a few hours. I’ll let you know when I got something. Sending the info to your phone.”

“That’s really unnerving.”

Parker nods. “Used to be second nature.”

Eliot hails a taxi and Parker gives the driver the address. Parker hangs back as Eliot checks into the room, both of them aware of the look they’re getting from the hotel clerk. Eliot leans in with a grin. Most of the time he’d be flirting. Instead he shrugs. “Office romance.”

“Lucky her.”

He takes the card key and taps it against the desk. Parker comes over and falls in step with him as they head toward the elevator. Eliot can feel exhaustion weighing on him and he leans back against the wall. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” She looks up at him, her face marred with confusion.

“Yelling. Yelling at you.” He rubs his face with one hand and thumps his head on the wall, making his cap fall forward. Parker snickers and he touches the brim, pushing it up. 

“I deserved it. I... I didn’t handle any of it well.”

“No reason you should have. The guy you loved had just been killed. You weren’t rational. Neither of us were.” He’s not alluding to the sex, but it’s the first thing that pops into his head. 

“You know what I’ve thought about a lot over the last couple of years?”

The elevator dings and they walk toward their room, neither of them speaking in the hallway. Eliot unlocks the door and goes in first to check it before nodding for Parker to come in. “What’s that?”

“How pissed off he’d be with us.” She sits down on one of the beds and tugs off the folded cravat she’s wearing at her neck. “Y’all just need to stop being like this and make up. Eliot, grumble at her, and Parker poke him and get over it. I ain’t got time for any of this. I have to program the thing and then type the other thing and you think it’s easy researching all of this? Nate’s got me reprogramming a NASA satellite _just in case_. And am I appreciated? Does anyone even notice my brilliance? No. They’re too busy pissin’ and moanin’ at each other.” 

Eliot fights his smile at her impression of Hardison. “NASA, huh?”

“Oh yeah. That was true though. Nate. Well, he was Nate. He was drunk. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time and he never told Hardison to stop.” She unbuttons her blouse and strips it off, leaving her in just her white bra and her skirt. “We should get some rest. I want to be ready to move as soon as Jeremiah has the information.”

Eliot lifts his suitcase onto the bed and opens it. “Really?”

She comes up behind him and starts laughing. It’s got a slightly hysterical edge and she ducks under his arm to pull out a hideously bright Hawaiian shirt. “Oh my god. This is awful.”

“I am not wearing that. I’m not _Nate_.” He shakes his head and grabs it from her, rolling it into a ball and tossing it at the garbage. “And who brings a goddamned Hawaiian shirt to Seattle?”

“People coming back from Hawaii?”

He digs through the pile and finds two t-shirts. There’s no way they’re going to fit him, so he’ll have to work with what he’s got. Parker grabs one of the t-shirts and pulls it on before taking off her bra. She steps out of her skirt and then sits on the other bed. Eliot zips the suitcase again and sets it on the floor, draping his jacket over it and setting his hat on top. He kicks off his shoes and lies back on the bed, arms crossed over his stomach. He turns his head toward her. Her legs are crossed, her head tilted as she watches him. “What?”

“It just seems weird. This. Us. Again.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t worry. One and done, right? Like it was all supposed to be.” He sits up because the damn shirt itches. He loosens his tie then unbuttons the top three buttons before tugging it over his head. He lies back again and frowns. “Why didn’t you call them?”

“I blamed them too. If they hadn’t left, if they hadn’t put me in charge, if they’d been there to see.” He can hear her shrug. “But they weren’t. And you were. An easy target. And if anyone had told me I’d equate those words with Eliot Spencer, well...”

His mouth quirks in a smile even though she can’t see it. She’s quiet then and Eliot closes his eyes. He doubts he’ll sleep, but some rest is definitely what he needs. He’s almost relaxed when the bed dips beside him. He turns to look at Parker and she leans in. Her mouth brushes his and Eliot jerks away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Shut up.” She catches his chin and kisses him again. Eliot remains still, frozen. Her mouth works against his closed lips. Her tongue darts out, tracing the seam of them. Eliot’s hands fist in the covers as Parker straddles him, keeping her body up and off of his, their mouths their only point of contact. 

“Pa –” He doesn’t get any further as his mouth opens on her name. She kisses him and her mouth tastes like chocolate. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know how. He only knows that he needs more of it. Wants more of it. The tip of his tongue traces along the surfaces of her mouth until she catches his tongue with her own and sucks on it. She lowers herself onto her elbows, her hands threading into his hair. It feels strange, different, because it’s so short, slipping through her fingers easily and far too quickly. 

He’s not sure how much time has passed when she breaks the kiss and sits back. His hands catch her hips beneath the t-shirt and his thumb rubs her skin just above the waistband of her underwear. She pulls her shirt off and tosses it aside and then leans back in, finding his mouth with hers again. Her hard nipples rub against his chest and he slides his hands up and down her back, feeling the bumps of her spine, the spread of her hips at the base of it. She moans into his mouth and he can’t help but respond. 

Parker shifts, using just one arm to support her as she slips a hand between them and undoes Eliot’s belt and fly with what seems like just a quick flip of her wrist. Another movement and his cock is in her hand, the head rubbing against the silky material of her panties. He can’t tell if she’s wet or if it’s just the pre-come from his dick smeared against the fabric. 

She moves him slightly, using his cock and her fingers both to push the material out of the way, and then she’s sinking down onto him. The elastic cuts into his skin at the base of his cock as she moves and he reaches down, ripping it. Parker moans into his mouth and Eliot moves his hands back to her hips. He squeezes lightly then his hands up her sides, moving them to cup her breasts, to tease her nipples with his thumb and forefinger. 

Parker tightens around him and her knees dig into his hips. She pulls back and rests her hands on his stomach, riding him in earnest. Eliot can’t stop touching her, can’t keep his hands from exploring all the smooth pale skin. She grabs his wrists tight and holds them as she speeds her movements, Eliot thrusting deep inside her every time she sinks down. She doesn’t look away, doesn’t blink and he holds her gaze steadily. They’re both breathing hard and the world is narrowed down to where her body touches his, where her breath makes goosebumps rise on his skin. 

Sweat pools in the hollow of his throat and he brings his hands back to her hips, her own still wrapped around his wrists. He holds her, but doesn’t hold her down, and he continues to thrusts up in time with her thrusting down. Neither of them speak; there’s no sound other than their breathing, the soft slap of skin. Parker’s nails dig in at his pulse points and he feels the heat of her, feels her come around him. It’s enough to send him over the edge and they still don’t close their eyes.

Parker stays astride him, her body slumping slightly. His dick softens, but her muscles keep him inside her. She releases his wrists, one hand falling to his stomach while the other slides down his forearm. Eliot watches her fingers slide over the raised, badly healed scars. He hadn’t taken care of them. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the reminder of that day or if he needed it. His punishment in flesh.

After what seems like hours she moves off of him, arching her hips as he slips out, and he can feel the slow curl of come slide out of her, slither off of his skin. She walks into the bathroom without a backward glance and Eliot gets up carefully, cupping himself so his boxers and slacks stay clean. He lets them drop to his ankles then steps out of them, going to the counter just outside the bathroom and fisting a handful of tissues so he can wipe himself off.

He stares at his arm while he waits for the shower, running his own fingers over the scars. He turns his hand over and opens his palm. There’s a ragged oval ring burned in the center and a series of broken lines on the tips of his fingers. Scars and a brand so he can’t ever forget. Not that he would.

Parker comes out with a towel wrapped around her. She brushes past him and keeps going, grabbing the t-shirt from the bed and tugging it on, digging in the suitcase she’d been carting along and finding another pair of underpants. Eliot shakes his head and goes into the bathroom and turns the water as hot as it will go.

**

Jeremiah calls Parker in the morning and she puts the phone on speaker. He gives them the details of where Hicks is hiding. It’s outside the city, up into the Cascades. It’s more of a retreat than any place to actually hide, luxury that gives the illusion of safety. 

“He’s got at least five guys with him, probably all with some sort of security background. I’m trying to get more intel by hacking into the employee files. Most guys like him don’t hang around with Boy Scouts, you know?”

“Find out what you can.” Parker tugs her hair back and secures it with a hair tie. “I want to know what we’re walking into before we get there. What’s going on with the FBI?”

“Feebs were at the airport all night, still there, but the guys from Travers’s detail are heading your way. Apparently the ones you met are just one of the details that got sent to every major airport with flights from New Mexico. My guess is Travers is an idiot who left some sort of note scribbled next to the phone that said ‘Go to Seattle’ with all sorts of hearts, smiley faces, and exclamation points. By the way, no one’s saying he’s dead, but WITSEC doesn’t just haul ass from where they’ve been staying because some dumbass ran away from his babysitters.”

“Give us their ETA when you’ve got it. We’ll need the address of Hicks’s hideaway. Eliot, go rent a car and we’ll get going. I want a head start. Thanks, Jay. We’ll go to ear buds when we leave.”

“Be careful out there.”

“Bye.” She hangs up and looks at Eliot. “He came to me. I didn’t find him. He’s smart and he’s clever. He’s not Hardison. Not even close. But I’d rather have him working with me than out there where something could happen to him. He’s not part of the cons. He doesn’t grift or steal or fight. He’s the voice in my ear and nothing else.”

“I’m sorry. The question was out of line.”

“Go get a car. We’ll stop at the mall and see if we can get you something else to wear. And roll down your sleeves. We don’t need to give anyone anything to remember us by.”

His sleeves were only pushed up to his elbows so he could scrub his face with cold water, but he doesn’t say anything as he tugs them down and fastens the buttons. He leaves the room, turning on his ear bud as he goes, and heads down to the front desk. He has to walk a couple of blocks for the nearest car rental place, but it doesn’t take long before he’s pulling up to the hotel’s front drive in something nondescript.

Parker’s waiting for him and slips into the car. A quick kiss blurs them both from the valet’s memory and he drives off, following his GPS. They stop at a chain store and he finds a pair of jeans and a couple of t-shirts as well as some boxer-briefs. He changes in the bathroom of a gas station and then they hit the road, heading east on I-90.

Jeremiah relays information as they drive, crawling through rush hour traffic. Parker’s sitting silently, and he can tell that she’s planning, working the situation from every angle. “Okay, guys. Got the employee files, and I’m hoping you ate your Wheaties, Eliot, because these guys are some serious bad-ass dudes. Two are ex-CIA. Two are ex-Mossad agents – well, maybe ex – and there’s one guy who might actually be the Godfather in the mob or something. None of them are nice guys, though I’m sure their mothers love them. If they haven’t killed them. I hope you brought, like, a tranquilizer gun.”

“Eliot doesn’t need one. Eliot is one.” Parker frowns. “I mean that in a good way.”

“I got it, Parker.” He taps the steering wheel. “How did they come to work for Hicks?”

“Let’s just say his building skills weren’t all learned on American soil. Rebuilding after the Iraq war. We’re talking KBR shit. Government contracts for millions. He got out before eyes got on him, but he’s got friends in high places. Hope you guys have a good game plan.”

Parker glances at Eliot. “We do. Anything else?”

“Not right now. Keep you informed though. You crazy kids be careful.”

“Okay, well. This should be a good time.” Eliot blows out a breath. “Never fought a mob boss before.”

“You fought the Butcher of Kiev.”

“That’s a _Russian_ mob boss. Totally different.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” She pulls her feet up onto the seat and wraps her arms around her legs. She rests her chin on her knees and breathes out. Eliot recognizes the breath. It’s the same kind he has when he starts to center himself. It’s the kind that draws everything in so it can all be expelled out. “I don’t love you.”

Eliot tightens his hands on the steering wheel, but the car doesn’t move off course. “I wasn’t aware that was in question.’

“Last night.”

“I know that wasn’t what it meant.”

“I mean, I do love you. You’re Eliot. You’re...” She sighs and turns her head, looking at him. “I love him. I loved him and I love him and I think if I could love someone else it might be you, but I don’t.”

“I know.” He doesn’t look at her. It’s easier to keep his eyes on the road. “I love you too, Parker. But that was all about something else. Grief. Anger. Hurt. It wasn’t any different than the last time, except maybe we forgave each other a little. Or forgave ourselves.”

“You aren’t sorry?”

He shakes his head. “You?”

“I miss him. So much. Sometimes I’ll be doing things and I’ll want to share it with him. I want to hear him laugh or over-explain something to me. And every time he’s not there.”

“I know.”

“And then you were gone. And I couldn’t bear to be with Nate and Sophie. It was different than with Sam, but they were mourning him in ways I didn’t understand.” She drops her hands to the toes of her shoes and wraps her fingers around them. “What did you do?”

“Found somewhere else to be. Someone else to be. And then I decided maybe I needed to stop. So I bought a place. Settled down mostly. Two dogs. Three horses. An older couple and their granddaughter look out for them when I’m gone on jobs.” 

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I’m good at being alone.” The GPS alerts them to get off the interstate, so Eliot takes the next off-ramp. The road to the house takes them up the mountain a ways, and Eliot’s glad it’s fall, too early for snow. The rental car wouldn’t have been up to the Washington snow, wet and heavy enough to earn the nickname “Cascade cement.” 

“None of the horses have tried to kill you?”

“Not once,” he says, letting a slight laugh color his voice. “I keep expecting the phone to ring, you know? Hear him lay into me, giving me shit about one thing or the other, reminding me that I’m a technophobe and I could just get on the goddamned computer and email him or something. I probably still say ‘dammit, Hardison’ as much as I ever used to.”

He can see her smile and something warm flares inside him. “That makes me happy.” She turns her head to look out the windshield. “I wouldn’t trade you for him. I wouldn’t have traded him for you. You were both supposed to stay forever.”

“I know he never meant to let you down, Parker.” He glances at the GPS and pulls the car over onto a forest road, driving in far enough to not be seen from the main roadway. He stops the car and looks at her. “Neither did I.”

**

Eliot looks through the binoculars, watching the patrol around Hicks’s place. There’s always two guards on the outside, never sticking to one pattern. Eliot can tell from the very distinctive way they move in almost perfect sync that they’re the two ex-Mossad. None of them seems to notice Parker on the alpine roof, slipping in through one of the windows hidden under the upper eaves. Eliot checks the gun and takes a deep breath before putting it in the shoulder holster. It’s not Franklin’s gun – that was left behind before they boarded the plane. This one is Eliot’s, and the metal is always cool against his palm. 

“I’m in.”

Parker’s voice is barely a whisper, but Eliot hears it and starts to move. There’s no pattern to their patrol, but there is a pattern to their movements. Eliot slips next to the house into one of the shadows in the short time between the two guards crossing. The next time one of them walks by, he sees or senses Eliot at the same time Eliot does, but Eliot’s waiting for him. He snaps a kick to the knee and the guy goes down. He doesn’t have a chance to get off a cry before Eliot is on him, dragging him into the woods, wrapping his arms around the trunk of a tree, and zip-tying his wrists together.

He catches the second guard coming the other direction, running full speed and tackling him to the ground. It takes longer than Eliot likes to get him down and out, and a dark array of pain comes to life inside him. The sharp gouge of the heel of the guy’s boot in Eliot’s shoulder is a bright flare on the edge of his consciousness, and he ignores it as best he can as he moves the second guy into the woods as well, far enough away from his cohort that they can’t help each other. Dragging him hurts, but Eliot simply reminds himself that, no matter how bad he feels right now, he’s probably going to feels worse by the time the night is over.

He heads for the back door, reaching it just as it opens. Parker’s blonde hair is hidden by her black hat, but her eyes are bright. “I tased the mob guy.”

“How do you know it was the mob guy?”

“He didn’t have a distinctive anything.”

“Where is he?”

“I handcuffed him to the toilet.”

“What?”

“He was drunk. Throwing up. Hugging the toilet. I just made sure he kept doing it.”

“You tased a guy who was throwing up?”

“I waited until he was done.”

Eliot stares at her then shakes his head. “Something wrong with you, Parker. Seriously, seriously wrong.”

She beams. “I’m going to hit the office and the safe. Let me know when it’s just him.”

He nods and grabs her wrist before she can disappear into the dark hallway. “Parker.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t believe in luck.”

Eliot doesn’t believe in luck either. Not in the kind he doesn’t make himself. He works his way through the house to the great room where Hicks and his two lackeys are. Hicks is sitting in a chair near the fireplace, and Eliot’s trained eye can see the drink in his hand trembling slightly. Part of it is skilled observation. Part of it is from years of watching Nate. It’s not the tremble of a drunk. It’s a tremble of fear. 

Hicks knows death is coming for him. He doesn’t know it’s already here.

**

Eliot walks into the room and crosses his arms over his chest. One of Hicks’s lackeys stops in the middle of his sentence when he sees Eliot. A quick glance tells Eliot that Parker was right. She did get the non-CIA guy. These two move in unison, squaring off against him. 

He’s fought a lot of fights since Hardison’s death. None of them have mattered. He’s had no personal stake in them. They were a job. This is more than that. This is everything. “Howdy, boys.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to kill your boss. Now, you can either get out of my way or get really, really hurt.”

“Hey look, Steve. We got a funny guy who’s watched too many movies. Who do you think you are, buddy? Dirty Harry?”

“No.” Eliot shakes his head and moves, jabbing the side of his hand into Steve’s throat. “I’m Eliot Spencer.”

The fight’s over too quickly. Eliot’s sweating and breathing hard when it’s done, and he swipes away blood from a cut over his eye as he turns to Hicks. Parker is sitting on the back of Hicks’s chair, a gun in her hand, held against his temple. “Say hello to my little friend.” Parker presses the gun harder against his skull. 

“You got any idea who we are?”

“No. No. What... I have no idea what this is about! I’m a businessman!”

“A businessman with a business partner.” Parker nods. “But you don’t like sharing. So you decide to make him disappear. Along with one of the buildings about to be inspected, one of the buildings that would lead right back to him. Which would lead right back to you.”

“The one problem,” Eliot adds as he sits on the edge of the coffee table in front of Hicks, “is that you didn’t kill Travers.”

“Not even a little bit.”

“No. You made a mistake.”

“A mis-mistake?” Hicks starts to turn his head, but Parker stops him by jabbing him with the gun.

“Two mistakes, Parker.”

“Two?”

“Yeah. He killed our partner, Hardison.” Eliot pulls the gun from the holster and very carefully aims it at Hicks. “And he pissed the two of us off.”

The bullet slices through Hicks’s throat, followed by three more in rapid succession. His head. His heart. His crotch. The last one produces a tuft of stuffing from the chair.

“Your aim was a little off on that last one.” Parker tosses her gun to him and he catches it. He takes off the t-shirt he’s wearing to reveal the one underneath. He carefully cleans both guns of any possible fingerprints before ejecting the magazines. Parker takes them and tosses them on Hicks’s lap while Eliot empties the bullets from the chamber. He tosses both guns in the fireplace. 

“Find anything good in the safe?”

“Money. Left a lot of open files on the computer that pretty much guarantee his company will be thoroughly investigated and shut down. Is it supposed to feel like this?”

Eliot lifts his arm, hiding his wince at the movement. She ducks under it and wraps her arm around his waist, leaning into him just a little. “Like what?” He asks softly.

“Hollow.” She glances back. “I thought I’d feel something.”

“There’s nothing to feel. Hardison’s gone. Hicks being alive or dead doesn’t change that. What we just did was for us. Not him.”

“So I should feel something. What do you feel?”

Eliot stops at the door and this time it’s he who looks back. “Like I’m done.”

**

He takes the long way home. Not back to where Parker found him, but to his actual home. He calls the grocer in town a few days before he plans to be there to arrange a delivery of food right after he arrives, then calls the family taking care of the animals and land for him to let them know he’s on his way. He picks up his truck from the back of the used car lot, turning over the keys to the car he’d brought back from the airport. He drives home, singing along with the radio, the window rolled down. The wind feels strange on his neck and he reaches back to rub it. 

He parks and the two huskies run toward the fence. “Scout! Jem!” They run in circles at the sound of their names and then race for the house. Eliot laughs and swings out of the truck, grabbing his bag out of the back and heading for the front door. It’s unlocked and the house has been aired out. Eliot has just enough time to drop the bag before he gets an armful of gray and white fur. 

He goes down to his knees and lets them crawl on him, licking his face and sniffing him, welcoming him home. He waves at Mark, one of his hands, and smacks the dogs lightly on their hindquarters. “Outside. Let’s go.”

They race ahead of him and Eliot follows them to the backyard, through the small gate and along the path that leads to the stables. Charlie’s on Bastian, working him in the ring, and Gris and Sparky are in the pasture.

“Hey, boss.” Mark falls in step with Eliot as the two dogs run into the pasture to dance and bark around the horses. “Glad to have you back.”

“Glad to be here. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Good. I had Martha come over and open up the other bedrooms, get some fresh air in ‘em, you know?”

“Why?”

“For your company. Must be getting old. Forgot to tell us they were coming.”

He heads off, whistling to the horses who walk over to him and toward the barn. Eliot looks over to the group on the fence, the sunlight behind them putting them all in shadow. He wants to kick himself for not noticing, for letting his guard down. But then, that’s always been the case for them. He exhales and wishes he’d grabbed a beer before he left the house. 

He starts walking in their direction and the dogs bound up to him, unsure if they want to follow or bounce ahead and bark at him as they walk backward. 

“I take it I owe this visit to Jeremiah?”

Nate shrugs. “Old friends can’t just drop by?”

“You guys don’t just drop by.”

“In this case, we do.” Sophie hops off the fence and stands next to him, raising her eyebrow until he laughs and pulls her into a hug. She smells like sunshine and something expensive. 

“Hey there, Soph.” He keeps his arm around her and holds out his free hand. Nate grabs it and shakes it firmly. “Nate.”

“Nice place.” Nate gets down and steals Sophie from Eliot's hold. “Mark said you got a food delivery and you’d be making dinner.”

“I always barbecue my first night home. I’ll see if I can’t get some extra steaks from Carl.” Eliot glances over at Parker who is still perched on the fence. “You all right there, Parker?”

“I just don’t see why they have to be so big.”

“It’s their job.” He moves over to her and turns his back. “Come on.”

She wraps her arms over his shoulders then slides off the fence, her legs going around his waist. He can feel her smile against his cheek. “Don’t worry. They don’t know what we did.”

“And even if we did,” Nate’s voice carries over his shoulder to them, “it wouldn’t matter at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hardison is killed by a bomb. Hardison is the emotional center of the group, especially when it comes to the trio. His death is used for that purpose/in that capacity not as a device for furthering another relationship.


End file.
